


You've Got the Magic Touch

by buoyantsaturn



Series: birthday week [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, hecate magic, meddling lou ellen, whiny will solace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-01 06:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18330629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buoyantsaturn/pseuds/buoyantsaturn
Summary: “There should be marks on their skin whenever one of them touches the other.”“And that’s what happened.”“But according to this, only they should be able to see the marks,” Cecil continued. “But instead, everyone else can see them.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and happy day 2 of birthday / appreciation week!! today's theme is fluff but uhhhh idk how much fluff this technically is but at least its not gut wrenching angst!! ((we still have 2 days before that happens)) so enjoy!!

Lou Ellen was getting Sick and Tired of watching her best friend run around like a lovesick puppy over some little emo. Ever since the end of the war, Will had been following Nico around, making sure he was eating and sleeping and forced him into the infirmary any time he got so much as a papercut.

Honestly, Lou would have been happy to never have to see Ghost Boy again, but after the fifth time that Will showed up in her cabin, collapsing on her bed and _whining_ about him, Lou realized that something had to be done. Something other than making him _disappear._

So she hit the books when she knew that Will would be too focused on the infirmary to interrupt her, and even recruited Cecil from the Hermes cabin to help her out.

She flipped through one of her spellbooks, a gift from her mother, until she found something that was almost exactly what she was looking for.

 

The next time she saw Will, he looked like he’d spilled a bottle of ink over his arms, though he didn’t seem to notice. He laid back on Lou Ellen’s bed, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes with a groan.

“He’s so _cute,_ Lou!” Will whined, like Lou hadn’t heard it a hundred times already. “His eyes are so pretty, and I never noticed it before but he’s got all these _freckles._ They’re tiny and they’re barely there but they’re all over his cheeks and his nose and-- Gods, Lou, he’s _adorable."_

“Uh huh,” Lou replied, obviously not paying any attention to what her friend was saying. She reached over and grabbed one of his arms by the wrist. “You really don’t see these marks all over your arm?”

Will sighed. “No, Lou, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Were you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, yeah, Nico’s cute, whatever. They’re like these black marks that kinda look like fingers?” She twisted his arm slightly, covering a set of marks with her own hand. “See? It’s a perfect hand print, they probably all are.”

 _"No,_  Lou, I don’t see,” Will said, pulling his arm out of her grasp and sitting up. “I gotta get back to the infirmary anyway, I’ll see you around.”

Will huffed, rising off the bed and exiting the cabin.

 

Lou didn’t see Nico until dinnertime, and while his arms were covered so that Lou couldn’t see any marks there, he had a shiny gold handprint on his cheek.

Cecil found Lou before she even got a chance to look for him. “You see Nico’s face?” Cecil asked. “And Will’s arms?”

“Yeah, I did,” she answered.

“Aren’t we not supposed to be able to see those?” Cecil asked. “Wasn’t the whole point of this to be that only they can see them?”

“I sure thought so,” Lou muttered. “We must’ve done something wrong. Snag me some food and meet me back in my cabin.”

Lou turned her back on the dining pavilion and went back toward her cabin in search of whatever could have gone wrong in her spell.

Cecil joined her about ten minutes later with two plates of food, after she’d already found the spell in her book and read it over about three times. 

“Read this and tell me the basics of what should’ve happened,” Lou told him, dropping the heavy book in Cecil’s lap once the words weren't making any sense to her anymore.

Ten seconds passed before Cecil spoke. “There should be marks on their skin whenever one of them touches the other.”

“And that’s what happened.”

“But according to this, only _they_ should be able to see the marks,” Cecil continued. “But instead, everyone else can see them.”

“So how do we fix it?”

Cecil skimmed the paragraphs a few more times before responding: “I don’t think we do.”

 

“What’s with your arms?” Kayla asked through a mouthful of food as she nodded at the black marks coating her brother’s forearms.

“Why does everyone keep asking about my _freakin’_ arms?” Will asked. He held the limbs out over the table, twisting his arms and looking them over. “There’s nothing there! The freckles are part of my skin, but there’s nothing else there!”

“Bro,” Austin started, “first of all, calm down. Second of all, you look like you dipped your arms in black ink, so I don’t get why you can’t see it.”

Will dropped his head into his hands. “Because there’s nothing there,” he moaned.

“So then you don’t see anything wrong with Nico, either?” Kayla asked, pointing a fork across the pavilion to the Big Three table.

Will spun around quickly, eyes darting around until they landed on Nico, and finally freezing when he didn’t see anything wrong with him.

“What’s wrong with him?” Will asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Of course you don’t,” Austin muttered.

Kayla snorted. “Nico always looks perfect to you, doesn’t he?”

Will turned around with a huff, glaring at his sister, but the blush on his cheeks made him seem even less threatening than he already was.

“You're not denying anything,” Austin pointed out.

“But really,” Kayla tried again, "you don’t see that big gold spot on his cheek? It’s taking up like, half his face.”

“Seriously, I don’t see anything wrong with him.”

“Of course not,” Austin said again, and Will’s head dropped to the table.

 

After dinner, Will reported back to the infirmary, the only one working the evening shift. There hadn’t been that many patients that day - for once - though he expected at least a couple more visitors before lights out that night. He made use of his time restocking the shelves and making sure each station had the right amount of supplies.

He was interrupted about halfway through restocking when Rachel entered the infirmary, bright smile vanishing when she saw Will.

“Hey, Rachel, can I help you with something?” Will asked.

Rachel’s head tilted as she looked Will over. “You’ve got his marks all over you.”

“What?” Will asked, quickly shoving everything in his hands onto a shelf in case Rachel decided to collapse anytime soon.

“Your arms,” she said, and Will huffed. “You can’t see the marks?”

“No,” Will said, just shy of a growl. “I can’t see the marks.”

“Let me see if I can fix that,” Rachel offered, stepping closer and holding out her hands. She touched the tips of her fingers to Will’s temples, eyes sliding shut. After a few short breaths, her eyes opened again, and when Will glanced down at his arms, the skin was smudged with black.

Rachel grinned. “Hecate magic with good intentions toward the future is actually pretty easy to work with, surprisingly enough. I hope this helps you.”

She started to walk away, but Will stopped her. “Wait, did you need anything else?”

“No, I think this was all I came here for.”

Will frowned, eyes dropping to his newly revealed markings. There were so many of them. Where could they have come from?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's separated into 2 chapters because i felt like it but for no other reason so,,, again enjoy!!

Nico wished people would stop calling him _Sparkles._ It had just started that morning, and the only justification of it he’d heard was that he had gold sparkles covering half of his face, but he couldn’t see them. He’d even washed his face - _twice! -_ but the name calling remained.

He wanted to summon a few skeletons to chase his bullies away, but he knew that if he did so, he’d either pass out or get dragged into the infirmary by one of the spies he was sure Will had set up throughout camp. It’s not that he was against going to the infirmary - he generally enjoyed doing so, and he and Will had gotten...close since the end of the war. A weird kind of close, maybe, but weird didn’t mean bad, though Nico wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about their relationship. He was certain of one thing, though: he did _not_ want Will to start calling him _Sparkles_ just like everybody else.

It had been a full day since the name calling began. Nico sat down at the Big Three table for breakfast - with all of the new cabins for the minor gods, it didn’t make any sense for him and Percy and sometimes Jason to have three separate tables, so Chiron had combined them all into one. Percy and Jason were already at the table when he arrived, greeting him - _of course they did -_ with a “Good morning, Sparkles.”

“Please stop calling me that,” Nico muttered, jabbing his spoon into his bowl of cereal.

“Did you forget to take a shower this morning?” Percy asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he spoke.

“Percy, I swear to _all the gods--”_

“I’m just saying, it looks like you’ve got something on your face,” Percy interrupted.

“There’s _nothing_ on my _face,”_ Nico hissed.

Jason rolled his eyes. “It’s pretty hard to miss, Nico. It’s _right there,_ hand-shaped, hand-sized-- Did someone slap you with a handful of glitter?”

Percy started laughing so hard that he choked on his bagel. “Oh my gods, _is that what happened?_ Did it hurt? Maybe you should get your _boyfriend_ to check you for injuries.”

Nico frowned. _“Boyfriend?”_

Jason inhaled so heavily that it sounded like it hurt. “You know, _Solace?”_ he said, like he’d had to explain it a thousand times before. “That Apollo kid, the medic.”

Nico hoped that whatever sparkles were supposedly all over his face would prevent the others from seeing the blush rising on his cheeks. “Will is _not_ my _boyfriend!”_ he spluttered.

“Maybe not, but you sure wish he was!” Percy teased.

“Shut up!”

_“Nico and Will, sitting in a tree--”_

_“Percy!”_

Around them, the pavilion went quiet as cracks started to form in the ground. Percy seemed surprised at first, but once he realized that it wasn’t him causing the damage, he smirked at Nico. After a second, the earth’s shaking ceased and the cracks in the ground sealed themselves as Nico relaxed his fisted hands.

 _“di Angelo!”_ someone called from the direction of the Apollo table, and Nico winced.

“Say hi to Will for us,” Jason told him.

 

He was escorted to the infirmary by Kayla, and forced onto a cot while he waited for Will. He kept his head ducked and rubbed at his cheek with his hand in the hopes that whatever sparkles were there would disappear before Will saw him, but nothing was rubbing off onto his hand. He kind of hoped that Will wouldn’t show up, that maybe he was still asleep or eating breakfast, but he hated himself for even thinking that. Will was probably one of his best friends and he hadn’t even seen him once yesterday - he should _want_ to see his friend!

Soon enough, the door to the infirmary flew open and Will ran inside, eyes frantically searching the infirmary until they landed on Nico. He rushed toward him, immediately cupping Nico’s face in his hands and tilting his head up to look at him. “Are you alright? What happened? Austin told me you used your powers--”

“I’m fine,” Nico told him, and pulled away from Will’s hands. “I just got a little angry because people keep calling me--”

“Sparkles,” Will cut in, his eyes dropping to Nico’s cheek before refocusing when he saw Nico frowning. “Sorry! Uh, you’ve just got all these sparkles on your face.”

“No, I _don’t,”_ Nico whined, and saw something spark in Will’s eyes.

He reached up and brushed his thumb across Nico’s cheek, though he frowned when it seemed like he only spread more sparkles rather than wiping them away. He pulled his hand away, looking at it to see if the sparkles had rubbed off, but all he saw was the ink-black shade his skin had turned. He pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands.

“Aren’t you hot?” Nico asked, and Will’s head snapped up. “It’s like, eighty degrees outside. Why are you wearing a sweatshirt?”

“Kayla always insists we blast the air conditioning in here when it’s so hot outside,” Will told him after a moment of hesitation, and shrugged. “It gets cold in here. Can you see the sparkles?” Nico shook his head. Will pulled back one of his sleeves and revealed his forearm. “Can you see the marks on my arm?”

Nico shook his head again. “Is this happening to other people?”

“Nobody’s come in to ask about it, so I think it’s just us,” Will replied, and frowned. “It’s weird that it’s only on your face, and only on my arms...unless…” He shot to his feet, grabbing Nico’s hand to pull him up with him. “Do you have a mirror in your cabin?”

“In the bathroom, yeah.”

“Alright, come with me.”

Will dragged Nico out of the infirmary and toward the cabins, ignoring the shouts of _“hey, Sparkles!”_ that came their way, and opened the door to Nico’s cabin, allowing the other to walk inside first. Hopefully no one would tattle on them for being alone in a cabin before Will could test his theory.

He shed his sweatshirt as soon as the door was shut, and Nico squeaked and blushed at the sight. Nico pointed toward the back of the cabin, averting his eyes, and said, “Bathroom’s back there.”

Will grabbed Nico’s wrist again and took him with him toward the bathroom, flipping on the light and looking at himself in the mirror. The black marks went up both arms, all the way to the shoulders, and a few scattered across his chest with some even on his back.

“Can you take your shirt off?” Will asked, and Nico’s eyes widened.

_“Why?”_

“Please? Humor me, I think I’ve almost figured this out.”

Nico bit his lip and hesitated with his hands tugging on the bottom hem of his shirt. After a moment, he reached back to grab the neck of his shirt and tugged it over his head. As Will’s eyes traveled over Nico’s pale and occasionally sparkly skin, Nico seemed to shrink under his gaze.

Will smiled, hoping to ease Nico’s discomfort. He reached up to cup Nico’s cheek again, tilting his head up to look at him. “C’mon, Neeks, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“That was...different. Have you figured it out yet?”

“I--” He pulled his hand away and frowned at Nico’s cheek. “Hang on.” He spun Nico around gently and saw his back almost completely unmarked - everywhere except for the small of his back. Will placed his hand, fingers spread, between Nico’s shoulder blades, and felt the other shiver under his touch. After a second, Will pulled his hand away, and a golden, sparkly handprint remained. “It’s your touch,” he whispered.

“Huh?”

“The black spots all over my arms. It’s where you’ve touched me. And the sparkles, they appear everywhere I touch you.”

Nico furrowed his brow. “Are we...cursed?”

Will reached up to brush his fingers across Nico’s cheek again, fascinated by the appearance of the sparkles and, admittedly, not wanting to pull away. “We must be, but I don’t know who...or _why_ someone would’ve--” In a second, Will’s eyes slipped shut and he started to fall forward until his forehead pressed against Nico’s as he groaned. “Lou Ellen. There’s nobody else that would’ve done it, I’m _certain_ of it.”

“But _why_ would she?”

Will sighed and his eyes opened, though he couldn’t make himself look at Nico. “Sometimes, I… I’ll go to her cabin and complain to her about...about how much I like you, but how I can never do anything about it. She must’ve been trying to get back at me, and dragged you into it, too. Gods, I’m so sorry, I’ll go talk to her about it, and we don’t have to talk about this ever again if you don’t want to--” He paused with his mouth hanging open, his eyes widening as he stared into Nico’s. In a second, he jumped back like Nico’s touch burned him. “Oh, _gods,_ I just told you that I like you! Please, _please_ don’t hate me for this, I don’t want this to change anything between us - unless you like me back, in which case I’d rather maybe kiss you instead of _not_ kissing you like we do now--” He slapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from blurting out anything else.

“Lou cursed us because...you like me? You _like_ me?” Nico took a step back and pulled his shirt back on as Will buried his face in his hands.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ he whined. “Do you want me to leave?”

“What? No, never.” Nico pulled Will’s hands away from his face and squeezed his fingers. “I… I think I like you, too.”

“Really?” Will whispered.

Nico dropped his gaze shyly, but didn’t loosen his hold on Will. “And if you wanted to...kiss me...I wouldn’t stop you.”

When Nico’s gaze flickered back up to his, Will saw his eyes brimming with hope, and couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He would give Nico anything he ever wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!


End file.
